Description:
An early Australian Platypus rug of 56 pelts, the animals taken from the Namoi River at Manilla, Northern New South Wales, circa 1900
overall 183 x 162cm, the pelts backed on brown felt.
The Baldwin Family of Durham Court and the Platypus Rug
The Baldwin family represent a classic example of the white colonialists who helped shape both Australia as we know it today and our attitudes towards the country in which we live. Arriving early in Australia’s British colonisation, on the Third Fleet, Henry Baldwin saw the immense natural potential in a land so unique, untouched and unlike the ‘old’ country from which he had been sent as a convict. He began his family’s rural work, taking ownership of considerable tracts of land, farming it and filling it with cattle.
His sons built on his success and became synonymous with pastoral accomplishment, breeding new types of cattle as well as winning racehorses. The ‘land of milk and honey’ that Australia promised British emigrants is represented in the story of the Baldwins. As well as their interest in and success with imported animals, later generations of the Baldwins took a great interest in native species as well. Charles and Athol Baldwin developed a native animal sanctuary and aviary at Durham Court, the family’s New South Wales estate. They also exchanged animals with the Bulba Trust native animal sanctuary at Lake Macquarie, Taronga Park Zoo in Sydney and Wilson’s Promontory National Park in Victoria. They regularly sent items to A.L. Turner in Sydney. Turner’s business card describes him as a ‘naturalist’ but this very likely covered taxidermy and the general preparation of pelts and furs, given the popularity of clothing and household items made from native animal fur in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The Baldwins clearly loved the natural world in which they had found themselves but as Victorians, they also had a need to control and contain that natural world. The Durham Court platypus rug speaks of that time in Australian history.
The Baldwin family and Durham Court, Manilla
Henry Baldwin, patriarch of the noted pastoralist family, arrived in Australia in 1791 on the Admiral Barrington. He was a convict and he had been sentenced to seven years transportation to Australia in 1789. The Admiral Barrington was part of the Third Fleet and it brought three-hundred imprisoned men to Port Jackson. Having served his time, he set about embracing the strange and exotic land to which he had been brought. Baldwin settled on the Hawkesbury River at Wilberforce, one of New South Wales’ original settlements, on the outskirts of Sydney. At the time of his death in 1843, he was able to leave an estate worth more than £5000, a staggering sum for the time. He had made his money essentially through hard work—farming, animal husbandry and the purchase of farms at Kurrajong, an hour north-west of Sydney, and on the Hunter River.
Henry Baldwin passed his robust pioneer spirit onto his sons. Otto was amongst the first to take livestock across the Liverpool Range, in the north of the Hunter region. With his brother Harvest (1813-1865, named after his father’s nickname), Otto squatted near Manilla, north-west of Tamworth. Manilla—meaning ‘winding river’—took its name from the language of the local Gamilaraay people. The town had been established in the early 1850s, at the intersection of the Namoi and Manilla rivers. This junction had long been recognised as fertile land—it had been a camping ground for the local indigenous people for generations. During the 1850s, bullock teams regularly transported goods from the Hunter district through the Manilla area to outlying cattle stations and the northern goldfield settlements of Bingara and Bundarra. The teams were often delayed at the junction of the Namoi and Manilla Rivers by high water. In 1853, resourceful Englishman George Veness arrived at ‘The Junction’ to set up a store and wine shop to serve the bullock teams. In doing so, Veness became acknowledged as the founder of Manilla. The town's initial prosperity was founded on its highly productive wheat and pastoral industries.
Otto and Harvest Baldwin established the Diniwarindi run, which covered 30,720 acres (12,432 ha), in approximately 1848. Charles Baldwin (1829-1906), the son of Otto and Harvest’s brother Edwin (1805-1868), came to Diniwarindi as a young man. Otto eventually left Charles to operate the run alone. Charles Baldwin bought high quality Australian cattle, imported pedigree bulls from England to improve his herds and garnered a strong reputation for the Durham Court Shorthorn stud. He also imported blood horses and established a stud; he was founder and patron of the Manilla Race Club. Horses bred at Durham Court won such prominent races as the St Leger, Epsom, and Sydney Cup. Havoc was one of his most successful sires. His thoroughbreds and Shorthorn cattle had a marked effect on the standard of Australian stock.
Baldwin was a key figure in the development of Manilla. In 1892 he subscribed £50 towards the building of the first Church of England in the town and gave £500 to Tamworth Hospital for the establishment of an operating theatre in 1901. He also acted as a justice of the peace. On 10 June 1856, Baldwin married Mary Ann Crowley. Together, they had three sons and six daughters. Mary Ann was to react badly to the terrifying experience of the Diniwarindi homestead being swept away by flood in 1864—the family narrowly escaped with their lives but her health was affected and she died, aged 35, on 1 February 1872. On 13 April 1875, Charles married Mary Ann Gorrick. They had three sons and two daughters. A large new homestead was built in 1876 on the northern side of the Namoi River—it was named Durham Court and it remains there today. The homestead section became the residence of a grandson, Otto. The tough conditions the Baldwin family faced is made vividly clear in this letter from Otto Baldwin to the Clarence and Richmond Examiner and New England Advertiser, following the flood of 1864.
We are in a deplorable condition here; we had a flood six feet high in the house. The whole of the buildings, except a part of the house and kitchen, are taken completely away. Everything is destroyed[;] it's no use to try to enumerate things. We are all busy packing up things scattered all the way to Broadwater (four miles distant) ; most of them are not worth picking up. The flood came so fast in the night, and it being dark and pouring down rain, that we were obliged to put the children and three women in the boat, and tie it to the porch of the back door...We only saved one bag of flour (for nineteen of us), no salt, one bag of sugar, and some tea that was in the water all night. The drays, buggies, and carriage are all swept down into the horse paddock…Fitz, Mrs. Fitz, and daughter were drowned. We buried Mrs. Fitz yesterday. The whole of Veness' place is clean gone…
The Platypus in Colonial Australia
The Victorian era, of which the Baldwins were a part, held conflicting views about nature. They admired the strength of wild animals, yet they had a need to control that wildness by hunting and stuffing the animals that they came across in the various parts of the British Empire. This was especially so in Australia. The fauna encountered here was unique, exotic and unlike anything that could be found in the English ‘mother country’. There was a need to conquer and subjugate Australia’s environment. To then turn animal skins into household items or clothing firmly underlined the taming and domesticating of the ‘savage’.
Equally, Darwin’s theories had spurred a general interest in science and a desire to collect and catalogue the natural world around them. So too, this inclination came from a need to maintain control of England’s vast empire of which Australia was, of course, a part. Conversely, it was also felt that the capturing and cataloguing of nature would allow for the greater appreciation of God’s work.
Trophy hunting was a habit at the very highest levels of Victorian society. The Prince of Wales was an avid huntsman at home and abroad. Bringing down large animals was believed to suggest a respect for the prowess and dignity of the wild creature, as well as an assumption of man's superiority. Possum and kangaroo skin rugs were made by Aboriginal people and offered for sale to diggers on the 1850s goldfields. Platypus hunting was a particular favourite in Australia. The mammals had long been praised by indigenous people for their warm pelts which were often used to swaddle babies. They took off as a fashion item for European settlers in the nineteenth century being made into hats, trim for garments, slippers and rugs. Forty to sixty platypus were required to make a single lap rug. Platypus rugs were sent to the 1862 London International Exhibition as a part of New South Wales contribution.
As such, there was money to be found in platypus pelts and the platypus population was decimated to the extent that they were declared a legally protected species in Victoria in 1892 and in New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania in 1907. This did not mean that the desire for platypus rugs died down. The Canberra Times reported on the sale of a platypus rug in London in 1943 for £1000. That same year, the Tasmanian Advocate reported on the sale of a 60-pelt platypus rug in Australia for £500. Recently the acquisition by the Powerhouse Museum of a platypus rug from the Bulwinkel family of Alstonville, northern New South Wales, was described by a museum conservator as a “priceless item because of its significance.”
References:
Advocate, “Platypus Rug for Sale at £500”, 8 July 1943, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/68816629
Australian Platypus Conservancy, “Fires, Floods and Platypus”, March 2008, http://www.platypus.asn.au/RIPPLES37.pdf
Canberra Times, “Platypus Rug”, 25 June 1943, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/2638802
Samantha Turnbull, “Eighty platypus killed to make rug”, 5 September 2012, http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2012/09/05/3583302.htm
Victoria and Albert Museum, “Nature”, http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/victorians/finals/nature.html
Kimberley Webber (Powerhouse Museum), “Platypus skin rug, 18801930”, http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=343335
Additional research material accompanies the rug, together with a folio of original documents, letters and cuttings. The following list was prepared by Dr Emily Turner-Graham, March 2014.
1 x copy, Australian Town and Country Journal, 7 January 1871. Features article “Diniwarindi Station”, page 16.
1 x original sepia photograph of Durham Court, Manilla NSW, 1892.
2 x newspaper articles, A.H. Chisholm, “Ways of the Wild—Nature Notes and Queries”, Daily Telegraph, undated. Features piece on “A Zoo in the Bush” about Durham Court.
1 x business card of A.L. Turner, 476 Pitt Street Sydney, “Fish. Aquariums, Kangaroos, Wallabies, and Birds Bought, Sold and Exchanged”. Handwritten notes on reverse.
1 x letter Director of Taronga Zoological Park Trust Zoological Gardens, Sydney to Athol Baldwin, 1 July 1916, seeking to procure platypus. On reverse side the handwritten word ‘Platypus’.
1 x letter, Honourary Secretary [name unclear] of National Park, Wilson’s Promontory to Charles Baldwin, 11 January 1924, regarding Nail-tailed Wallabies sent to Wilson’s Promontory via A.S. LaSouef at Taronga Zoological Park Trust Sydney. Koalas offered as exchange.
1 x letter, John Maloney (Bulba Trust) to E. Baldwin, 15 August 1924, regarding two kangaroos which had been sent to Bulba Trust (Pulbah Island) from Durham Court, one of whom had died upon arrival.
1 x letter, John Maloney (Bulba Trust) to Charles Baldwin, 27 August 1924, regarding death of second kangaroo and Baldwin’s request for red bills. Handwritten note on reverse (unclear).
1 x letter, John Maloney [presumed] to E. Baldwin, 11 September 1924, page missing.
1 x letter, John Maloney (Bulba Trust) to Charles Baldwin, 7 October 192—(no date), regarding death of two wallabies of five sent to Maloney, also ongoing pursuit of red bills.
1 x letter, Robert H. Baier to John Maloney, no date, regarding ‘red bills’ (birds) being sent to Durham Court from Robert H. Baier at ‘Glenroy’, Karuah.
1 x letter, John Maloney to Robert H. Baier, regarding ‘red bills’ (birds) being sent to Durham Court from Robert H. Baier at ‘Glenroy’, Karuah.
1 x letter, John Maloney Honourary Secretary Bulba Trust, to Charles Baldwin, 10 February 1925, regarding ‘red bills’ (birds) being sent to Durham Court from Robert H. Baier at ‘Glenroy’, Karuah.
1 x letter, Harry Burrell to Charles Baldwin, 13 February 1925, regarding Daily Telegraph report and procuring of platypus—“I would like you to collect somewhat secretly”.
1 x letter, Secretary to Chairman, Taronga Zoological Park Trust, Zoological Gardens, Mosman Sydney, 14 February 1925, regarding animal ‘stock’ exchanged.
1 x letter A.L. Turner, Naturalist, to Otto Baldwin, 19 August 1927, regarding an exchange of Quail and Nicobar Pigeons as well as Blue Breasted Waxbills and Paddymelons.
1 x letter A.L. Turner, Naturalist, to Otto Baldwin, 17 June 1929, regarding a delivery to Durham Court.
1 x letter A.L. Turner, undated and unaddressed (seems to be fragment), regarding death of paddymelons, need for replacement animals and cost of the whole operation.
Categories: Collectables > General (Collectables)
